What I'm Working On

(since I know you're curious!)

A roll of color film in the Voigtlander Vito B, barely begun;

A roll of b/w film in my Konica T3, first for fun (nudes!) and second to re-test my Sigma 28mm in Konica mount, since I can't find the roll I first used it on;

A roll of b/w in my Yashica FX-3 which has been sitting in a drawer at work for a while, waiting for an opportunity -- I am trying to check out this high end Tamron MC 2x converter that was basically a brand new bargain;

Just finished that LOMO roll I mentioned below, need to update that page, but I scanned the sample photo;

And will use one or more of the above to practice my hand at still life, something that sounds easy but for the most part has eluded me when I've pursued it.

That and still needing to get in the darkroom to print proofs and other stuff. Yes at this point I could just scan it but that's much less fun.

LOMO

I finally finished the second test roll in my Lomo LC-A, after the first disastrous roll where I kept forgetting to change either the focal range, aperture, or both. And frankly I wasn't impressed this time around either.

My goal was to test it in low light situations taking pictures of colorful items, as this was supposed to be one of the selling points of the LC-A, its colorful contrasty pictures and good auto-metering. So my self-assignment was, basically, collections of bottles, either in bars or liquor stores. Aaaand I didn't really turn up any good examples, except one photo which was taken in daylight of something completely different, which came out very well. They're all more or less well-exposed but vastly out of focus or at the very least unsharp. Granted, it's difficult to handhold a 2s exposure when you have a drink or two in you and are trying to be discreet about your snaps, even if you rest your elbows on the bar like you're a tripod. Still, this type of scenario is supposed to be where the LOMO shines!

At any rate, I'll update the page and post a sample soon. I guess the next thing to do is do a similar test with my beloved XA2. Well, if I must, I must!

Good news

I have fixed the problem with RSS feed and the links on the archived post pages that I was unaware of up until yesterday.

Also, I'm happily shooting again after a fairly long drought. Sometimes you just have to recharge your batteries by working on other things.

My Bad!

The hit counter is off the hook lately, but my email has dropped to nearly nil! It occurred to me this morning that this is my own fault by inadvertently implying that I never respond to my email, which is not the case at all!

Actually, I nearly always respond the same day if not within hours. It's just that there was a slew of very technical questions there for a while that got set aside because I didn't have a chance to research an appropriate response, and then time got away from me. So please, keep those emails coming!

(That is, except the ones that ask how much I think a certain camera is worth. I don't know. I'm not an appraiser. I'm a photographer. Check ebay.)

10, 9, 8, 7...

My hit counter is about to roll over 100,000 new views! Woo! I know, goofy thing to be excited about, but I think it's pretty cool. I'll have a little private toast in celebration and, what, a 21-frame salute??

All Quiet on the Western Front?

I actually sent myself a test email to make sure my email account was working, after it got quiet all of a sudden right about the time I upgraded Thunderbird to 1.507. It works, it's just quiet out there I guess.

SO just as my calf starts feeling like it's getting close to 100% I get a nasty cold and cut the palms of both my hands with my Santoku knife while washing it. Guess I was holding it too gingerly and it slipped. Sharp little bugger! Anyway I avoided the ER trip this time and self-administered first aid, the worst was the right palm which seems to be doing very well two days later. Had to spring for some of that New Skin liquid bandage since regular Band-Aids don't seem to stick to palms for long. Works great. The one thing they don't tell you on the box -- the stuff hurts like hell when you put it on. Even worse than the original cut! Must be the high alcohol content. At least I can type now ;)

Hope you've had a chance to poke around some of the newly added pages, I didn't announce them all, and have a few more waiting in the wings. I'm still working on rolls of film in at least 2 cameras as usual, slowly, slowly...

2 new samples

For the Nikon N2000 and N6006. Interesting - I think I've only taken one roll of film with the N2000, while the N6006 must have had at least a hundred run through it between Ellen and I. Of course, most of the best pictures from the N6006 have already been cropped and added to various scrapbooks. I like the one I picked though. Was trying to stay away from family pics, which have been 99.9% of its output. Hard to pick those samples sometimes!

Hey here's some advice for you that you hopefully will never need: should you ever drop a large sharp knife while washing it, don't try to catch it -- let it fall or jump out of the way. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Little Changes, New Samples

I'm still finding the occasional broken link; I have a few lingering issues from some global search & replace sessions. So minor tweaks here and there as I find them.

Today I fixed the missing Salyut-C sample, first it was absent and then incorrectly linked. I also replaced the sample for the Ricohmatic 35 with one from the same roll that I think better represents that cool little classic.

More missing sample pics as I can. Seems like I'm missing some rolls of film, I'm sure they're around here somewhere!

Finally, New New Work!

True, some of the images are simply unpublished images from 2003-present, while some are very recent. I still haven't printed or scanned many of my most recent images -- they will be in the next round of 'new work' and then some of the ones you see here will filter down to the other galleries.

Enjoy!

Two Galleries Updated

Yes it's coming fast and furious now, I'm obviously on a tear to get this all done. Must have other work I should be doing :) Of course after that I'll probably be quiet for a while. Hey now!

The People gallery and the General (aka Places & Things) gallery are both now updated with some new images, plus some images that may have been up previously but went missing for one reason or another. And I've rearranged them a bit so they're all, you know, pretty and stuff.

PLUS -- I have the images for the New Work gallery picked out and properly sized, and am just putting together the pages to go with them. Very soon!

Slower than snails?

Last summer about the time I got sidetracked with life stuff and stopped collecting and shooting and updating the website, my computer hard drive crashed and took much unanswered email with it. Between that and changing email programs, and other life stuff since then, I am sorely behind in my email for the most part.

So those of you who wrote and never got a reply please don't be offended. And to those who are suddenly receiving replies to emails from as long as a year ago don't be too shocked!

Matt

Nudes

A new page has been added to the Nudes gallery, and all the other gallery pages have been updated to match the new look and feel of the site. I have also updated the pages in the People and General sections even though I will be replacing some pages and adding others.

I may do the New Work section in phases, I have too many images to choose from -- it hasn't been updated in far too long -- and so may add some now and swap them out later...

More Updates

I found a couple of 'missing' pages! New to the website:

Seikanon Zoom for Minolta MD
Voigtlander Vito B

plus new samples for two lenses:

Seikanon Zoom for Minolta MD
Rikenon XR 135mm for Pentax K

and an update to the Vivitar Handgrip which is even more versatile than I remembered.

and a few more broken links cleaned up.

Comments welcome!

On to the Galleries

I have finished going through all the camera pages! I will continue to refine them with user-contributed tips and info but in the meantime all the links are updated and all the information is up-to-date. Whew!

My first pass on the galleries will be to update all the pages with the new look and code, and then I'll go back and add new images. I have plenty, I swear :P Just need to get into the darkroom and do some printing. I also have some scanning to do...

Not to mention I also need to pick sample pictures for some of the cameras that don't have them yet, including... the LOMO. Actually I'm still working on a roll in that one, it's a replacement for my first LOMO LC-A that basically committed suicide, and I was determined to get one at a reasonable price to try out, and it took me a while to find one. Soon...

Rangefinders

I'm almost through the K's in the Rangefinders. My bus commute to the City gives me a great opportunity to work on my site! Especially now that school's in session and the normal 101 traffic has begun...

This weekend I hope to get in the darkroom and do some printing. Happy Friday!

Now We're Getting Somewhere

SLR pages are done! Even added another camera that wasn't profiled before! Wow, that just leaves the super-long rangefinders section. And all the galleries.... DOH.

Now, to be fair, I'm not just going through the pages and making sure the links are valid and checking the html/css code, I'm also reading each page and making sure they're still accurate and make sense when you read them. I've seen a few 'huh?' sentences and 'what the...' paragraphs and have, shall we say, massaged the text to make it more... readable.

Also as you may have noticed I redid the colors on this page to make it blend in with the rest of the site as a cohesive whole -- it's published here from the blogger website with a stock template that I've tweaked a little and also used as a jumping-off point for my new css templates.

Comments always welcome!

Where did the Weekend Go?

Three day weekends are like a bait-and-switch that get you thinking you're having a vacation, and then just when you're getting comfortable, smack you upside the head with a work week. Sigh.

Site update: I'm well into working over the SLR pages (man I have a lot of cameras), I started at the bottom and have Pentax-Zenit done now. A couple new accessories are up on the accessories page. Rather, one new one and a relocated one.

Still sifting through old pics for images, I have now at least 4 proof sheets to make, mostly from recent pics but one of which is a set of negs I don't remember taking nor know why they didn't get proofed & printed already. Huh. I guess I'm easily distracted eh :)

Other news: pentatonic blues is coming along! Also I've slightly customized my guitar courtesy of ebay -- I swapped out the knobs for some knurled silver ones and added a pick guard. I'm having a ton of fun with this guitar.

Further news: just got an email from a designer in the UK who is using a font I designed several years ago on his website and wrote to thank me for it. Cool! I have yet to relocate my little font portfolio site, but will soon. Bet you didn't know I used to do that kind of thing....